Donkey Kong ’94 on the Game Boy is one of my favourite platformers. After the first four levels, which are the same as the original Donkey Kong arcade game, it becomes this massive puzzle platformer with a very agile Mario up against Donkey Kong. Mario vs. Donkey Kong, the Game Boy Advance sequel, was also great, but it introduced levels with mini Mario toys in it that you have to help to the exit in a very Troddlers/Krusty’s Super Fun …
This too was the All-Stars version of the game, and like the All-Stars version of the original Super Mario Bros, it still looks fantastic today. I used some warp pipes, but did play through more levels than just the bare minimum. I got lost a lot on World 8 and seemed to go round in circles on the map, so I obviously don’t remember it as well as I thought I did. Bowser was a lot easier than I remember …
No, I didn’t think a crossover between the worlds of Mario and the Rabbids would work either, but somehow, it does. Perhaps it’s partly because the gameplay doesn’t borrow from either party, and Mario + Rabbids becomes its own thing. Instead of precision platforming or nonsensical minigames, this game provides a fun turn based strategy game interspersed with some puzzles (mainly of the switch pressing or block pushing variety). It’s not quite Xcom or Ubisoft’s earlier Nintendo title Ghost Recon: …
This is a hard one. Well, not hard in that way (the game is easy – very easy), but hard in how I feel about it. Unlike pretty much every Mario game ever, Super Mario Odyssey didn’t instantly grab me. Perhaps it was the terrible looking first “world”. Maybe it was the stark art style changes between worlds. I don’t know. Definitely, I started enjoying it in my first hour – but other games in the series I was hooked …
I’ve played a lot of games. And, in recent years, I’ve completed loads too – more than 150 in less than three years, in fact. That’s all well and good, but plot twists and end boss “surprises” are becoming less and less, well, surprising. It’s no real spoiler to say that the end boss, isn’t actually the end boss as there’s another boss afterwards. This is now The Done Thing with games these days, it seems. Not that there’s anything …
Another game tonight, this time on the King Boo level. Waluigi won this time though, nabbing the “proper” star just before I got the “hidden” star twice, resetting the castle and sending us back to the start. Bah! After that, we played the bowling and puzzle mini-games.
Multiplayer only this evening, playing both random minigames and two player Mario vs Luigi mode. Both modes are actually really good fun to play, with Mario vs Luigi mode reminding me of the original Mario Bros (sans Super), and the minigames being a little like Mario Party. I won, of course.
This evening, I played wireless multiplayer with my wife. And it’s great! Most (all?) of the minigames have been stolen from Super Mario 64DS, but now that they’re multiplayer, it seems a billion times better. The Mario vs Luigi Star Battle Hyper Fun Happy Fighter II mode is great as well – being not entirely unlike the original Super-less Mario Bros in a way. Fun all round!
Finished the last two worlds today (5 and 6, unsurprisingly), and then defeated the final boss that comes after them. The credits rolled, and the game was over, but then… Then two new modes were opened up – Expert and Plus. Plus is a bit like a cross between the standard levels and the mini-Mario levels, whereas Expert is just a load of difficult levels. Had a go at a few, and may well plough through some more, but for …
Rattled through quite a few more levels today, completing up to World 5. Haven’t had too many taxing levels yet, although 4-MM was difficult until I realised that the Mini-Marios would jump a gap if I jumped it first. Until then it was looking pretty impossible. Tch.
Mario vs Donkey Kong is the sequel (pretty much) to the original Game Boy game Donkey Kong, which in itself was a sort of huge expansion for the even older Donkey Kong arcade game. The GB game was actually the first non-Japanese game to take advantage of the SNES Super Game Boy add-on too. And it was ACES. Mario vs Donkey Kong is also ACES. Basically, you have to travel through puzzley-platformey levels, finding keys to open doors and rescuing …
Just a quick play on this today. Got another star (by getting red coins from all the Boos in the courtyard), and caught three more rabbits to unlock some more mini-games. Played them for a while too. The shell-smacking one is ace.
Had a quick go at catching rabbits to unlock more minigames. I realised that you actually have to catch each rabbit four times, as catching one with Yoshi only unlocks a Yoshi minigame. This could be tedious. The seven minigames I unlocked are pretty good, but nothing special. There’s a pelmanism game, using sounds not pictures, two of those grid-of-squares and touching one inverts it and the surrounding ones type games, which I hate, although most of these are pretty …
Well. I’m “compensating” with the controls. That means I’m still annoyed with them, but I’m only doing levels I absolutely have to, or levels that don’t requite such precision. Six lives lost to the first Bowser level then, as it is too hard to use the camera and control Mario at the same time. Managed it in the end, however. I also went and got the first star in Shifting Sand Land, and drained the water from the basement. Caught …
Oh dear, Nintendo. What have you done? Mario 64 was one of the best games ever created. Better in many ways than Mario Sunshine, even. But this DS port is awful – ruined almost entirely by the dreadful controls. The digital pad is no good for the tight turns and run-speed control required, and the touch screen isn’t responsive enough and awkward to use. Played it for a good two hours today, and it hasn’t “clicked” yet. I have 8 …
